"
His eyes, which had dilated when she began to speak, darkened; his
color, which had quickly come, as quickly sank when she had ended.
"Don't say that, Miss Carr. It is not like you, and--it is useless. You
know what I meant a moment ago. I read it in your reply. You meant that
I, like others, had deceived myself. Did you not?"
She could not meet those honest eyes with less than equal honesty.
She knew that Jessie did not love him--would not marry him--whatever
coquetry she might have shown.
"I did not mean to offend you," she said hesitatingly; "I only half
suspected it when I spoke."
"And you wish to spare me the avowal?" he said bitterly.
"To me, perhaps, yes, by anticipating it. I could not tell what ideas
you might have gathered from some indiscreet frankness of Jessie--or my
father," she added, with almost equal bitterness.
"I have never spoken to either," he replied quickly. He stopped, and
added, after a moment's mortifying reflection, "I've been brought up in
the woods, Miss Carr, and I suppose I have followed my feelings, instead
of the etiquette of society."
Christie was too relieved at the rehabilitation of Jessie's truthfulness
to notice the full significance of his speech.
"Good-by," he said again, holding out his hand.
"Good-by!"
She extended her own, ungloved, with a frank smile.
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